Talker 25

by McCune, Joshua

  “We’ll hum to them. That always makes them feel better.” I start in with a lullaby; she chooses the Kissing Dragons theme song. We’re both off-key.

  I tug a blanket around us, keep it clasped tight with one hand to conceal my movements from the cameras. With the other, I press my finger to Twenty-One’s left forearm and scrawl How can u talk to dragons?

  She squints, shakes her head, hums louder. We repeat this several times before she nods acknowledgment and responds on my arm.

  Three tries later, me mouthing out guesses and her answering “yes, yes” or “no, no,” I correctly decipher: Can hear. Can’t talk.

  Is her CENSIR malfunctioning? But . . .

  How can you hear Baby? She’s collared.

  “It doesn’t work the same on us. We’re different.”

  They’ll kill Baby if they discover this. And they might very well do the same to Twenty-One. Island secret.

  I don’t think she notices my words, though, her attention back on Evelyn. “We could have the dragons throw them in the ocean, yes, yes. They’ll freeze.” She clenches the blanket in her fists, trembles violently. “Or burn them! Burn, burn, burn!”

  I embrace her until she calms. “Shhh. The monkeys are still upset.” Ignoring the agitated looks of those near us, I resume my awful hum. When do dragons come?

  “A few—”

  I tap her arm.

  A few days. I think.

  Is Keith with them?

  She shrugs. I don’t know much. I think they’re worried I’ll blab. “But I haven’t blabbed about you, no, no.”

  I press a finger to her lips. Me?

  “Follow the Silverback’s trail, yes, yes.” I shush her again. That’s what they call you. “Because of Arabelle.”

  How could they follow my trail? Maybe they tracked the airplane or . . . It doesn’t matter. Rescue’s coming. It’s actually coming.

  I kiss her forehead. Island secret.

  She pantomimes locking her mouth and throwing away the key. We practice shooting vultures until she drifts to sleep.

  After a breakfast that doesn’t taste quite so bad as normal, Evelyn and I meet up with the makeup artists at the rec center. While she changes into a spare outfit, a production assistant preps me for today’s shoot. I’m getting eyeliner applied, reading over the script, when Twenty-Six shows up.

  He glowers at me, grabs his binder from a table, and slumps into a nearby chair. “What problems you going to cause today, Glowheart?”

  I tap the script. “This is good stuff. While I’m off foraging for berries like your good little cavewoman, you get to show Frank the best way to skin a dragon. Doesn’t that make your blackheart extra happy?”

  He frowns. “You’re in a good mood.”

  Even Evelyn emerging from the locker room, bouncy and bubbly—far more suited for the tight jumpsuit than me—can’t ruin it. I suffer a momentary prick of envy, but it disappears fast when the barber informs her she needs a haircut.

  “Did I not mention that?” I say. “Whoops.”

  “But I’m blond already,” she whines.

  The production assistant steps in. “It needs to look the same. We have an extra wig for you.”

  Evelyn’s eyes go buggy as the barber gives her the sheep treatment. She catches me grinning at her reflection in the mirror. “I’m telling Twenty-One about the Kit Kat.”

  “Does this mean we’re not friends?”

  After Evelyn’s wigged and prepped to resemble me, and James is properly sultrified, Lester chauffeurs us to the slaughter slab. Hector’s got everything set up, including a live dragon to replace the one I slayed last night. Twenty-Six and I hug, gaze longingly at each other, then Evelyn steps in, and they kiss.

  And kiss. Hector gives them a “Brilliant,” repositions his cameras, and has them go at it again. I grit my teeth. Only two more days. Maybe less. I glance up at the ceiling. Maybe the dragons are already on their way. While Twenty-Six and the strumpet continue their lovefest, I contemplate what I’m going to do once I’m free of this hellhole.

  I won’t be able to return to the old world. No more high school. No college. At least not until my name and face are forgotten. I’ll probably have to be a crate-in-a-cave nomad for several years.

  It’ll be a far different life than I ever imagined growing up, but it will be mine. No CENSIRs. No A-Bs, no Major Alderson. No call centers, ERs, or battle rooms.

  “Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.”

  No TV shows.

  For episode two, we help the four A-Bs track a reclusive Green responsible for the destruction of a million acres of African flora. And, oh yeah, he’s also killed a bunch of people, but the show’s more focused on his ecological impact because, according to Hector, the environmentalists are another demographic they’re attempting to snare.

  After filming the preexecution bullshit, we return to the ER to slay the Serengeti Savager. Twenty-Six hands me the sword, and we kill the dragon. Evelyn steps in, does her thing, and we’re done before dinner.

  “Excellent job,” Hector says, though I know his praise is meant more for Twenty-Six. “I’d like to invite you all to dinner, if that’s all right, Sergeant?”

  “The major shouldn’t have a problem with that,” Lester says.

  I grab my script binder from a chair. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not.”

  Hector shrugs. “Don’t worry about those lines. We’re changing the script.”

  “Why?” Twenty-Six asks.

  “Major Alderson had a plot idea I found quite appealing. That man is brilliant.”

  If brilliant equals evil, I’d agree. But I don’t care anymore. I can do anything that sick bastard can dream up, because rescue’s coming. And in a few days, if things go according to my imagination, Major Alderson will be dead. That would be brilliant.

  I join Twenty-One at the cafeteria table. Hunched over my tray, I use my plastic knife to score out letters on the plastic tray. News?

  She looks both ways and in a quick hush says, “No, no.”

  “What are you two up to?” Lorena asks, sliding over. She sees my message before I can cover it up.

  “Nothing to see here, no, no.” Twenty-One ducks beneath the table.

  “I thought you weren’t talking to me,” I say.

  “Melissa, don’t do this to yourself.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Lorena rolls her eyes, sticks her knife into my tray. Rescue. “Ring a bell?”

  Despite her exasperated expression, I can’t contain my smile. “They’re coming.”

  She shakes her head. “No, they’re not.”

  “But Twenty-One said—”

  “She comes up with this type of thing all the time. Sometimes it’s the dragons who are going to save the day, sometimes it’s her parents, who happen to be dead. You can quit it with all this cloak-and-dagger—”

  She cuts off when she sees my new message: 21 talked to Baby. “She knew something I never told anybody.”

  Lorena gives me a sympathetic look. “It doesn’t matter, Melissa. Ever since Allie was reconditioned, she’s been like that. They’re just jumbled voices in her head. She can’t make sense of what’s real and what’s not. Maybe it’s a good thing for her, these stories she fabricates, I don’t know, but you can’t trust what she says.” She grips me hard around the wrist. “It’s only asking for trouble. For her, for you, for all of us. You have to let go.”

  I can’t. Rescue will come. Someday, somehow. I have to believe that. In nae. I bite at my lip, manage a weak smile. “Well, at least I’m finally over James. That’s something to be happy about, right?”

  She releases my wrist. “We will have to celebrate properly when we get back to the barracks.”

  “You sure you want to be seen with me? What was it Pam called me?”

  She grins. “The rainbow whore. Kind of has a ring to it.”

  I laugh. “Wait until you see Evelyn.”

  O
n our way to the bus, Twenty-One tugs at my jacket. “Thursday.”

  “Thursday?”

  She nods with excitement. “Arabelle says Thursday, but she’s scared, yes, yes.”

  “Why is she scared?” Lorena asks, as if she’s talking to a kindergartener. She shoots me a warning look.

  Twenty-One waits until we’re past the guard at the front of the bus. “Because they’re moving her.”

  “Tell her not to worry,” Lorena says. “Melissa’s doing everything she can to protect her.” Another pointed look. “And we trust Melissa, don’t we?”

  “She’s one of the good ones, yes, yes,” she says, plopping into her seat. She pulls out her dragon brooch, waves it through the air, hums the Kissing Dragons theme song with a jovial “burn, burn, burn” thrown in here and there.

  Watching her, I realize Lorena’s right. It’s one thing for me to hope and scheme, another to involve Twenty-One. I only risk endangering her.

  When we enter the barracks, I pull Twenty-One aside. “So I was thinking we could discuss more decorations for our island tonight.”

  “For the dragons?”

  I shake my head. “If they come, fine, but right now it’s just you and me.”

  She nods, shrugs out of her winter clothes, then races to the far corner.

  I toss my jacket into a box and slump onto the bed beside Lorena. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. You didn’t know.”

  “That’s not what I’m sorry for.”

  “I know.” She smiles. “We all have our moments.”

  “Hurry it up, ladies,” Lester says from the doorway.

  I’m pulling off my boots, extra slow because of the blisters on my hands, when Twenty-One starts bawling.

  “Control your emotions, Twenty-One.” Lester shocks her, which only gets her crying harder.

  “Leave her alone,” I say, hurrying over. “Twenty-One, what’s—”

  She slaps me hard across the face with the brooch.

  “You’re not a good one, no, no!” I stumble back, half in pain, half in shock. She hurls herself at me with a mournful wail, fists flying. I hug her tight, get punched in the nose, kneed in the thigh. Lester jolts her again and again.

  “Leave her alone!” I say.

  “You’re supposed to protect her!” Twenty-One cries, then goes limp in my arms.

  “Give her here, Twenty-Five,” Lester says as I check her breathing. Alive.

  Lorena steps between us. “Sergeant, we can take care of her. She gets like this sometimes. When she wakes up, she won’t even remember it.”

  “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

  Lorena settles her hand on his wrist. “There’s nothing we can do, Sergeant?”

  I try to mimic her seductive smile. “Anything?”

  Lester pushes Lorena’s arm away. His face hardens. “Twenty-Five, the girl.”

  “Do what the sergeant wants, Melissa,” Lorena says.

  I kiss Twenty-One’s forehead, whisper “Remember the island,” and give her up.

  When they leave the barracks, I collapse onto my bed. A rerun of Kissing Dragons plays, followed by propaganda that shows a trio of Reds bombarding London. Evelyn finally returns and her girls go gaga over her new look.

  “Don’t any of you people care?” I shout, rising to my feet. “She was one of us, and we just let them take her because she had a bad moment. We’ve all had our issues.”

  “Yeah, like killing Claire?” someone says.

  “Slut.”

  “Hate me all you want, but she’s a child who needed our help,” I say. And I didn’t do anything either. Just handed her over like a sack of grain.

  Lorena hugs me. I weep into her shoulder. “She’s not coming back, is she?”

  “You won’t recognize her. . . . I still can’t figure out what set her off.”

  I feel at the bruise on my face where she hit me with the dragon brooch. The silver dragon brooch. “You’re supposed to protect her,” I mumble, then let out a bitter laugh.

  “What is it?” Lorena asks.

  “It’s Baby.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  37

  The next morning, I request a meeting with Colonel Hanks. Lester happily obliges.

  “We had a deal,” I say when I enter the colonel’s office. But it’s not Colonel Hanks sitting behind the desk.

  Major Alderson looks up from his tablet. “Can I help you, Twenty-Five?”

  “Where’s Colonel Hanks?”

  “On leave. While he is away, I am in charge.”

  My heart sinks. “You can’t execute the Silver.”

  “Found out about that, huh?” He shrugs. “The thing just wouldn’t die out there in that cage. Then this show of yours comes along and throws a big wrench into my ER. And when I met with Hector the other night, I learned that if things go right, he and his crew will be back for the long term, causing logjams and distracting my men. I needed a solution that would satisfy everybody.”

  “I had a deal with Colonel Hanks.”

  “I’m not Colonel Hanks. You don’t have a deal with me.”

  “I won’t kill her,” I say. “And you can’t do the show without me.”

  He nods with feigned concern. “That could be a panty twister.” He raises a finger, makes a phone call, puts it on speaker mode. “Hector, I’ve got Twenty-Five here with me, and she says she doesn’t want to do your show anymore. Is that a problem?”

  Hector doesn’t miss a beat. “I’d prefer for Melissa to do it, of course, but if I do long shots and some CGI touchup, Evelyn will work fine.”

  Evelyn. The grave of my hope. And I have nobody to blame for digging it but myself. “She can’t do the preexecution stuff,” I say, knowing I’m grasping at invisible straws.

  “We can do those scenes when you’re in a better frame of mind,” Hector says.

  “I’ll never be in a better frame of mind, asshole!”

  My CENSIR jolts me. “Control yourself, Twenty-Five,” Major Alderson says. “Melissa will no longer participate in the show. Can Evelyn replace her for the other scenes, too?”

  “I’ll need some time,” Hector says. “Is the Silver in place for this afternoon’s shoot?”

  The major checks his tablet. “That’s an affirmative.”

  “Let’s run that now. It’ll give me some wiggle room, particularly since my writers are still tweaking the front end.”

  “Works for my schedule.” The major hangs up. “Well, looks like we’re all settled up here. Sergeant, please conduct Twenty-Five to the ER for the Silver’s execution. Need to remind her who’s in charge around here. Can’t have the inmates running the asylum, can we?”

  Soldiers and scientists assemble around the slaughter slab. Excited murmurs follow Lester and me as we push our way toward the silver glow. I wish I had a gun with an endless supply of bullets. Bet their smiles wouldn’t be so broad if they had blood leaking from holes—

  My CENSIR shocks me. “Control your emotions, Twenty-Five.”

  When we get to the front and I see Baby surrounded by the lights and cameras, thoughts of retribution vanish. For a moment, maybe ten, my mind, my lungs, my heart seem to stop working. There’s so much fear in her eyes.

  “Baby!” She brightens. “It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna—” My CENSIR shocks me. “Be okay—” Another shock.

  “Control your emotions, Twenty-Five.”

  “I’m not doing anything wrong.”

  My CENSIR shocks me.

  Evelyn saunters to Baby’s side. She waves to the cheering crowd before turning her eager gaze on Twenty-Six, who seems fixated on the sword in his hands.

  Baby deserves a better end than this.

  “Hector!” I shout.

  The director gets out from behind the camera. “If you cannot control her, Sergeant—”

  “Let me d
o the execution,” I say.

  “Evelyn will do fine.”

  “Yeah, she’s a good kisser.” I snort. “But I don’t think that’s what you want right now.”

  He glances toward Evelyn, then his eyes narrow on me. “Why? I was told this creature was your friend.”

  “She is,” I say. “If you knew your friend were going to be executed, would you want somebody who hates her to do it? Or would you rather suck it up and do it yourself because you know you’d make it as painless as you could?”

  “That would be scene appropriate.” Hector beckons a production assistant and a makeup artist. “Get her outfit. You, cover that welt on her cheek. Otherwise, keep it minimal.”

  While I’m getting my face done, he waves for Evelyn. “Take five. Melissa’s gonna do the scene.”

  “What?” Twenty-Six looks up from the sword, as if he just noticed I was here. “She’ll screw it up.”

  Evelyn storms over. “She’s only doing this because she wants to say good-bye to her precious little Silver.”

  “I don’t want to do it with her,” Twenty-Six says as Evelyn and I glare at each other. “She’s unreliable.”

  “Just bring me the sword, Blackheart. I’ll do the rest.”

  Goose bumps prickling every inch of my body, I change behind the wardrobe screen set up behind the slab.

  Hector gives me an earpiece. “One miscue, and you’re off my set.”

  When I get close to Baby, I can hear her mewling through the bindings around her snout. I run my hand along her icy head, which calms her a bit.

  “It’ll be over soon,” I say.

  “Let’s roll!”

  Twenty-Six begins a slow death march. With every step he takes, my heart seems to beat faster, louder.

  “You’re more sad than happy,” Hector whispers through the earpiece. “This is the dragon you grew up with. A friend—look at her—but she’s too dangerous to let live. You know that now. With her death, you will be free of attachment to dragons and you will be redeemed. Feel free to cry. That would be appropriate at this time.”

  It requires all my willpower not to chuck the earpiece. I chew hard at my lip. I will not cry. I need my strength to make this as painless for Baby as I can, and I will not give Twenty-Six or Evelyn or any of these bastards the pleasure of seeing how much this hurts.